When confronted with a difficult situation everyone experiences stress. Teachers serve a critical role in any country's educational system. Stress has a negative impact on teachers’ performance by affecting individual's productivity as well as the educational institution. This research described the profile of teachers; identified their level of stress; determined their personal coping mechanism; identified their level of coping mechanisms; determined the significant correlation between profile and level of stress; determined the significant correlation between profile and personal coping mechanism; and recommended wellness program. This study is a descriptive-correlation type of research. Stress of teachers usually originates from their subjects handled. Teachers often feel stress due to their heavy workloads because aside from their teaching task, they still have additional workloads given or assigned to them like doing administrative works. They have given short time to compute students' grades wherein they cannot do it if students do not submit their activities or outputs on time, and also, they still do their work at home which gives them less time to be with their family. Another stressor to teachers is their relationship with their students because it mostly instigated from the students refusing to complete their given work in their modules which would lead for teachers not having activities to check and record. This is also brought by lack of parental involvement in disciplining their child and eventually could lead to getting low performance in the school. Teachers personally combat tension and anxiety by relying on their inner strength through their strong belief that God will help them solve their problems. They also open up to friends to solicit their advice or going to places where they can relax and overcome their stress. Older teachers, those who have rendered more years in teaching, those whose specialization are in science, and those teaching multi-grade levels have suffered more stress. The personal coping mechanisms used by the teachers, regardless of their profile, are similar. High school teachers who have acquired more relevant experiences in teaching manifested more resiliency and higher tolerance to the stress coming from their dealings with management. To lessen the stress of high school teachers, their workloads should be reduced by minimizing the subjects handled given to the teachers. It should be done systematically and evidence-based. A proper and rigorous time-use study can provide a clear picture of which types of work are necessary to be delegated to teachers and which have to be eliminated from their workload. Strength to combat stress could be developed over the years, hence, younger high school teachers should do well to learn strategies of their seniors in combating stress. Peer mentoring, attending trainings and workshops and engaging in wellness activities.

Keywords: stress, stress management, coping, coping mechanisms, personal coping mechanisms

Thesis (Master in Management - Business Management)

Includes appendices and bibliographical references.